A road not taken
by cedricsowner
Summary: A series of murders and a strange encounter lead Reid to take a look at the choices he made in his past. Reid-centric case-fic.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds and intend no copyright infringement.**

_Come, superb cat, to my amorous heart;  
Hold back the talons of your paws,  
Let me gaze into your beautiful eyes  
Of metal and agate._

_Charles Baudelaire_

"Is this the same guy who killed the nurse in Philadelphia and the preschool teacher in Seattle?", the local detective asked no one in particular. "I've seen it on the news last night. Six murders altogether, right? Bastard seems to travel a lot – every victim in another city, all over the USA. And hardworking, too. It's been merely 10 days since this started, isn't it?" He would have spat on the ground, hadn't it contaminated the crime scene.

"Eight victims", Rossi replied curtly. "With this one, it's eight victims in 14 days. Doesn't make anything better, though."

"The victims are getting younger", Prentiss noticed, carefully studying the sixteen year old girl's dead body, lying face down on the tarmac of a highly frequented road south of Chicago. "The first victim was a seventy-eight year old pensioner in Houston and now we have a High School cheerleader."

"It's not only the victims' profile that has changed, there's also a significant alteration regarding the mode of abduction and the dump site", Reid pointed out. "The unsub is getting increasingly more daring – the first victim was a widower, known to be living alone. He was taken in the middle of the night, his body was dumped in a remote area of a public park. Low-risk abduction, low-risk disposal. This victim was taken after a major sporting event at her school and left at one of the city's main traffic arteries."

"On the other hand significant elements of his MO are still the same: No signs of sexual abuse, no signs of any other kind of physical harming pre- or postmortem. One clear shot to the back of the head, execution style… And the thing with the right hand, of course." Morgan wiped dust and sweat from his face. Summer break was just around the corner for the kids. Somehow it made this particular murder even worse. "14 days!", he growled. "And we still don't even know what he hopes to gain from these deeds. What does he get off on? The thrill of the hunt? The feeling of ultimate power before he pulls the trigger? But he doesn't toy with them in any detectable way…" He broke off and took a deep breath. Letting frustration take over wouldn't help anyone.

"Maybe we're looking at it from the wrong direction", Reid spoke up again, more talking to himself than to the others, his eyes never leaving the victim. "What if the elements that remained the same from the first killing onwards are the elements that don't matter to him?"

"That would leave the personality of the victims, the abduction and the disposal as keys to his motivation", Prentiss mused.

"Yes! And what do these three elements have in common?" Suddenly excited, Reid looked at his colleagues. He wasn't sure where this was going, but he had the feeling that they were finally getting a hold of something.

"Attention-seeking", Rossi replied, nodding slowly. "Every victim he chose was bound to attract more attention than the previous one. Only very few people cared about a 78 year old widower found somewhere in a park. But a 16 year old teenager who only hours before had performed in front of a thousand people, lying dead on a road that's frequented by most Chicagoans at least once a week, that's a totally different story."

"We might indeed be onto something here", Hotch agreed, face grave as always, but approving. "Garcia just sent this in. It'll be on the news in half an hour's time" He opened his PDA and started a video, apparently a clip from a TV show.

_According to material that's been sent to one of our journalists, the numerous victims of the serial killer called "The Traveler", his latest being Chicago's hometown girl 16 year old Rachel Phillips, are connected by one significant detail: The right hands of all his victims were colorized deep blue with a liquefied indigo powder containing coconut oil. _

"Garcia is currently checking if there's been any leak in the data transfer between us, the different laboratories and forensics, but it might very well be that the unsub himself gave this detailed information to the media. This would speak for Reid's theory."

"Finally something to work on", Morgan nodded. "Finally."

_**AN: This was written for and is dedicated to a wonderful friend. Thank you for putting up with me through thick and thin and always being only one phone call away. Merry Christmas!**_


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds and intend no copyright infringement.**

"Seems our new FBI contact is finally paying off", Section Chief Johnson told the Unit Chief he had called into his office.

"About time", the other agent muttered.

"This e-mail was sent to Erin Strauss' office half an hour ago anonymously, subject line said "identity of traveler"." Johnson pushed a piece of paper towards his inferior and looked out of the window while the agent slowly read the short text.

It was a beautiful summer morning in Langley, Virginia. The steely blue sky was almost cloudless and a light breeze made sure it didn't get too hot.

The agent read the text several times, then looked at his boss with signs of confusion showing on his face. "It's been a while since we heard anything about Cave…", he tentatively said.

"What happened roughly three weeks ago?", Johnson prompted.

The face of the other agent took on the expression of a child not having done his homework and trying to cobble something together on the fly. "Well, uh, three weeks ago…."

"It's always good to see our Unit Chiefs are keeping up with the latest international developments. What do you think CIA is paying you for?"

"One day", the other agent thought darkly, "you'll make a mistake, Johnson. And then I'm going to pay you back for every haughty comment you ever made."

"Three weeks ago", Johnson answered his question himself, "our Chinese friends reopened a certain area of Taklamakan Desert that had been a military no-go zone for the past eleven years."

The other agent gasped. "Could it be? After all this time? Could all these murders be related to _Sweet Delight_?"

"The murders started 14 days ago and they're designed to look like Cave's. He's the only surviving participant of that operation who was actually on site back then. To me it seems someone is trying to flush Cave out and ask him a couple of questions regarding a certain location."

... ... ...

"Rachel was our heart's delight. She was a blessing to everyone she met – her parents' only daughter and endless source of joy and happiness. Her teachers spoke of her with nothing but pride. At sixteen most young people don't know what they want to do with their lives, but Rachel had just made a significant step towards her future after school. Only last Sunday she told me that she was thinking about becoming a doctor and wanted to volunteer at our local hospital…"

"She had a crush on one of the doctors", a girl in the pew before Reid whispered to another girl, sitting right next to her. The other girl looked at her, a smile fluttered across her face and then she started crying.

Rachel's mother's loud sobs interrupted the priest's words. Her husband, equally on the verge of breaking down, took her in his arms and held her tight.

It was standard practice to go to the victim's funeral and check for any kind of unusual occurrences. A lot of unsubs liked to wallow in the pain of the mourners. It helped them refresh their memory of the deed and fueled their feeling of omnipotence. Nevertheless Reid couldn't shake the feeling that there was much more to this particular series of murders than met the eye.

... ... ...

"Are we going to tell Strauss that the Traveler case might be connected to a eleven year old foreign assignment?"

Johnson shook his head. "_Sweet Delight_ went south really badly and still nobody found out who the mole was that blew everything. If we lie low and just watch, we might finally be able to nail down the perpetrator. Should anything totally out of the ordinary happen, I'll file an official application, but otherwise…"

"_Totally out of the ordinary?_ We've got eight victims so far!", the other agent blurted out.

... ... ...

Two of Rachel's friends had to be brought outside the church, it was just too much for them. Most of the young people that filled the building that day had been to the funeral of an even-aged friend or at least acquaintance before. Drunk driving and drug abuse plus the occasional suicide here and there were the plagues of their young lives and most had learned to deal with them somehow. But Rachel's demise was a totally different thing. _Somebody_ had come and taken her away. Grief was mixed with utter anger that day at the church and not few of the tears were shed in frustration over the fact that revenge was impossible.

"This is all about provocation", Reid thought as his eyes scanned the crowd that made its way towards the priest during communion. "All these murders were meant to provoke somebody. But whom? And why?"

... ... ...

"The BAU has a fantastic solve rate. Hotchner and his team are the best you can get. They'll figure out the connection by themselves soon enough. The less they know about our involvement into this, the better."

"But the victims are getting younger…" The stern look on Johnson's face made the agent stop dead in mid-sentence.

"I think I've made myself very clear."

... ... ...

The roses the students laid on Rachel's grave shriveled up within hours in the blazing heat of a glorious summer day Rachel wasn't going to see.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds and intend no copyright infringement.**

"Founded sometime in the early 1960's, Heraklion developed into one of the world's most dangerous criminal organizations. It specialized in offering other criminal organizations or individuals "useful services", such as the elimination of high-profile adversaries, technically challenging sabotage, sensitive information procurement and retrieval of highly protected items." The gaunt man who was speaking with a highly annoying twang of superiority in his voice changed to a power point slide showing a complicated organization chart.

He had been introduced to them as Agent Marwick.

"Agent", as in MI5 Agent.

Prentiss wondered if she had ever seen anyone wave a remote control as pompously as him.

"In 2003 a concerted action of MI5, MI6 and Europol with support from the Royal Air Force managed to bust a meeting of Heraklion's top management layer, which ultimately led to the organization's complete destruction." He changed to another slide, depicting an airfield cluttered with burned out planes, all sorts of soot-blackened debris and several dead bodies.

Marwick shone with pride over the operation's success.

Poor man, he had no idea into what lions' den he had walked this afternoon in Chicago.

"Actually it was not only the arrestment of Heraklion's leadership but also, if not more so, the simultaneous cyber attack on their bank accounts, data bases and servers that brought Heraklion down", Reid added, sounding completely innocent. "Their entire electronic infrastructure was practically annihilated with an effectiveness that's still without equal."

The agent looked as if he could have done without that additional information.

"I've heard about that!", Garcia exclaimed, making use of her acting talent. "The Heraklion Purgatory of 2003! Left the hacker community shiver in awe and abhorrence. No one would have thought government employees to be capable of _that_."

Their guest showed signs of feeling a little uncomfortable. "Well, whatever the reasons for Heraklion's ending, fact is in its heyday the organization used a special sign to stigmatize traitors", he explained quickly. "They executed them with clear shots to the back of the head and then turned the palms of their right hands blue with liquefied indigo powder."

"So you think the unsub might be a former Heraklion employee?", Prentiss stated, trying to sound as if she had just concluded this.

"Not simply "a" former Heraklion employee. The top management layer didn't meet without protection that day at the airfield. They had taken enormous security measures, relying on their own homegrown workforce of professional assassins. Thus the RAF support – it was a war-like battle. The only high-profile assassin that escaped that day and which we couldn't get a hold on even with all the information we retrieved from Heraklion's data bases later, was a man named Cave. We think he's responsible for the recent killings. He's the only one who used coconut oil in the indigo mixture."

"MI5 is handing us over the identity of an unsub? How very generous." Rossi's tried to suppress it, but his voice was nevertheless dripping with sarcasm.

"I'd hardly call it "handing over", the agent replied, slightly confused. These people were behaving oddly. MI5 was doing them a big favor by helping them out- they should know their place and be grateful. Dumb Yanks. "Cave is a ghost. We've spent eight years hunting him in vain. We've been told this unit can work miracles and we wish you all the luck in the world, but we've got serious doubts you'll succeed. Of course we'll do everything in our power to assist you – Section Chief Chilcott decided to grant you full access to all our files regarding Cave. I've heard one of you can read 20.000 words per minute. Considering the amount of data we collected on him, you'll need that." He allowed himself a haughty smile.

For a moment no one said a word. Originally they had planned to let Marwick give his little presentation and then confront him with the e-mail that had been sent to Strauss' office this morning, only hours before MI5 Section Chief Chilcott called and announced Marwick's arrival, but Reid was repeatedly making eye-contact with Hotch, letting him know that he had thought of something. Hotch decided to trust the young doctor's mind and instinct and nodded in agreement.

"…or maybe we just talk to the informant you had planted inside the organization", Reid told the MI5 agent matter-of-factly.

Marwick's face fell as his eyes widened in utter astonishment.

"The degree with which you managed to get a hold of Heraklion's cyber side clearly indicates that you had access to their passwords and that in turn points towards an informant deep inside the organization's structure."

"And besides that", Rossi added silently to Reid's explanation, "we received an e-mail that, given the information you just provided us with, can only come from someone who was part of the organization _and _had ties to MI5."

Even Hotch couldn't stifle a thin smile at the agent's crestfallen look.

"Way to go, kid!", Morgan laughed and patted Reid's shoulder.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds and intend no copyright infringement.**

_Someone will come and try to make you believe that the person who is responsible for "the Traveler's" murders is a man named Cave, an assassin formerly in the employ of Heraklion, a now defunct European based criminal organization. Don't let him fool you. Cave is not responsible for the recent killings._

Very atypically Garcia hadn't been able to trace the e-mail. "Whoever sent this did a very good job of concealing himself. It's a tiny masterpiece." She tried to hide it, but she was disappointed on the verge of pouting. Tracing e-mails was one of her specialties and she had promised Derek she would find the sender within five minutes tops. Morgan sensed her distress and slightly brushed her arm as he reached for a pen in the middle of the conference table he didn't really need.

Garcia understood and smiled. Maybe she would be able to make up for her shortcoming with the information she had retrieved from MI5's data base. By granting them access to Cave's files MI5 had unwittingly left a tiny loophole open for Garcia to slip through and dig around a little for the identity of the informant MI5 had planted inside Heraklion. Predictably Marwick had refused to give away any information on him, bubbling a lot of BS about protection of their agents being Section Chief Chilcott's top priority etc.

Well, what did they have Garcia for?

The MI5 information was encrypted, of course, but her decode program was already working on it, all she had to do was sit and wait. Hotch hadn't been thrilled by the idea of stealing data from a foreign intelligence service, of course, but on the other hand they had eight victims piled up around them and an unknown number of MI5 agents who somehow played a role in this.

"The unspecific use of "someone" in the mail indicates that whoever wrote it only knew that Cave wasn't the unsub and had no idea who wanted to put the blame on Cave." Reid paused for a moment. "That might have changed by now. If the writer of the e-mail somehow obtained knowledge of Marwick making contact with us…"

A shrill signal coming from where Garcia had set up part of her computer equipment disturbed his thoughts. "My decode program! Looks like we're going to find out a couple of MI5's dirty little secrets", she chirped happily and skipped out of the room.

"You think Marwick might be in danger?", Morgan asked Reid, his eyes following Garcia. It was good seeing that the dark cloud of frustration hanging above her head had disappeared as quickly as it had come. He needed his babygirl upbeat and positive.

Upbeat and positive…

Maybe he should have sent someone else to take a look at the decoded MI5 files or at least have someone go with her then, for what Garcia was about to read would shake her fundamental belief system to the ground and leave her everything but upbeat and positive.

"Hard to say. We don't know anything about the sender, neither his motives to clarify Cave's innocence nor his feelings towards the "someone" trying to mislead us. We don't know what any of this is about. But judging by the fact that eight people lost their lives in connection with this affair so far, I'd advise caution."

"I tried to convince Marwick to stay at our hotel, close to us, even asked his Section Chief to order him to, but neither he nor Chilcott didn't want to hear any of it", Hotch said. "He's staying in the cabin of a roadside motel."

"Maybe we should have told him about the e-mail as we originally planned?", Prentiss wondered.

Rossi vehemently shook his head. "Reid was right to change the plan. We don't know what role Marwick is playing in this. We've got eight dead people and reason to believe there's something fishy about him. If he's somehow connected to the killings, knowledge of the e-mail might drive him away. And since he's an MI5 agent, under the protection of his organization, chances are we'd never find him again."

At this very moment, Garcia came rushing back into the conference room. "You won't believe what was in that file!", she all but cried, deeply shocked.


	5. Chapter 5

**Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds and intend no copyright infringement.**

Seeing what Garcia had seen, Hotch called on the local police force to bring Marwick back in. He could already hear Strauss telling him in no uncertain terms what she thought about this treatment of another agency's representative. And her British counterpart, Chilcott, wouldn't be amused either. Did he care? No. The more they progressed with this case, the darker and more repulsive it got. Someone needed to put a stop on it.

Naturally, Marwick was rather upset about him being brought back rather unceremoniously to the BAU people and being confronted with material that was supposed to be highly confidential.

Little did he know the BAU's actions had just bought him a tiny little more time before he was going to be thrown into the worst experience of his life.

"This just can't be true." Morgan flat-out refused to believe what he had read in the secret file. So did the others. Especially Reid showed signs of deep shock and revulsion.

"Just when you think you've heard it all." Appalled, Prentiss shook her head.

They were all staring at the picture of a merrily laughing teenage girl with a curly dark pony tail, standing in a blooming garden sometime in the summer, holding a cute white kitten towards the photographer.

"She was born in Southern France as Marie-Élise Alphonse, oldest of three kids. A bright girl with an IQ of 185. She was just about to finish her baccalauréat at the age of 13 when her family died in a shootout that followed a Heraklion operation in Bordeaux. Collateral damage – one of Heraklion's people threw a hand grenade and it accidentally landed in the family's sport sedan. Marie-Élise had been home preparing for her exams, that saved her life. The family had vague ties to Great Britain and an aunt in North Sussex consented to take her in. This is where we made initial contact." Marwick stared out of the window, but it was dark outside and all he could see was the reflection of his haggard, pale face.

"Let's cut to the chase of the matter here", Morgan interrupted him angrily. "You recruited a _thirteen year old_ girl who had just lost her complete family to infiltrate the very organization who was responsible for the violent deaths of her parents and her siblings?"

"I'm not here to discuss any decisions the British government or MI5 made", the agent replied tersely.

"You took a highly traumatized girl at the beginning of her socialization-wise extremely significant teenage years, planted her in one of the world's most dangerous criminal organizations and let her remain there for _six_ years?" Reid's voice was shaking. If anyone knew how vulnerable traumatized teenagers were, it was him.

"As I said before, I'm not here to discuss in any way, shape or form MI5's or the British government's actions. But let me point out that without Marie-Élise's thorough investigatory work we would have never been able to destroy the organization. Heraklion liked to rely on a homegrown workforce of assassins. They had headhunters that picked up kids from the streets. They gave them a home, fed them, trained them… this way they managed to create a deep bond of loyalty to the organization. We had no other way of getting in there."

"How did she maintain her cover once she was through training?", Reid asked. Rarely had the others seen him stare this hostile at someone.

Agent Marwick shifted uncomfortably. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"You just said Heraklion liked to rely on a homegrown workforce of assassins. So she was trained to be an assassin. How did she manage to make the others believe she really was an assassin over the course of six years?"

"Reid", Hotch interfered, but he spoke very softly. He was way too upset himself to stop him from insisting on this horrifying question.

"Every country, and I'm sure I'm telling citizens of the USA nothing new here…" It was unbelievable, Marwick actually dared to smirk. "…has enemies. Enemies that manage to escape every attempt to get a lawful hold of them. Enemies that pose a threat to every honest citizen's freedom and well-being."

"You engaged Heraklion to kill those "enemies" and Marie-Élise performed these assignments? You made her your _executioner_?" Garcia had remained silent the whole time, as a technical analyst it wasn't her job to ask non computer-related questions, but this was definitely too much.

"I've got to say, she dealt surprisingly well with the situation. She never seemed to be influenced terribly much by her jobs." Marwick earnestly meant what he was saying.

"You said she was born as Marie-Élise Alphonse", Rossi stated. "That indicates she later changed her name. What did she call herself in her Heraklion years?"

"It was just a code name. They all had code names there."

"What was it?" Rossi's voice turned into a low growl.

"Fleur." Agent Marwick shrugged. "She called herself Fleur."

Everyone groaned.

"Excuse me?" The agent looked truly puzzled.

"Don't tell me no one ever pointed that out." Morgan felt so angry, he was barely able to remain sitting.

"She chose "Fleur", Reid hissed, eyes blazing with fury, "as in "_fleurs du mal_", "The flowers of evil", a collection of poems by Baudelaire."


	6. Chapter 6

**Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds and intend no copyright infringement.**

"We need to talk to her", Hotch told Marwick.

The agent laughed dryly. "You, MI5, MI6, Europol… The reason I originally wasn't planning to inform you about Marie-Élise…"

"You mean there's an additional reason besides not being keen on confessing that MI5 sacrificed an innocent child for the sake of the so-called common good?", Morgan interrupted sarcastically.

Marwick clenched his jaw. "…the reason I didn't want to tell you about her is that this piece of information won't bring you an inch closer to Cave. For five years we thought she had not survived the raid at the airfield. One of the airplanes, fully loaded with Kerosene, had blown up during the shootout and burned out completely. We found some human remains in the wreck, but it was barely more than ashes. DNA analysis was impossible. According to the signal of the tracker she had had on her that day she had been inside that plane at the time of the explosion. She was declared dead."

"Three years ago that assumption changed?" Hotch was losing his patience with all the complicated twists and turns this story had taken so far.

"She was seen on a street in Nancy. One of our agents recognized her, but unfortunately she recognized him, too. She ran and vanished within seconds. We've been trying to find her ever since, but so far all our efforts have been to no avail."

"So she staged her own death eight years ago at the airfield", Rossi summed up the information they had just been given. "Any idea why she decided to do that?"

"We've been asking ourselves the same question for three years now!" Either Marwick was a damn good actor or he was so naïve that he was bordering on outright stupid.

"Maybe she had the impression MI5 wouldn't want living proof running around that they severely disregard every constitutional right ever formulated, not to mention international agreements or something petty as ethics." Hotch knew very well that it wasn't wise to antagonize a foreign agent, but he saw every day what Haley's demise did to Jack. Exploiting a child's grief was an unforgivable sin.

"Maybe she thought MI5 wouldn't want to face the risk of having a highly trained and well-experienced assassin going her own ways", Prentiss added.

"Wouldn't be the first time a useful instrument was eliminated after having fulfilled its purpose." Rossi's voice still resembled the low growl of a wolf. This was just unbelievable.

"The Moor has done his duty, the Moor can go", Reid stated, then paused as if lost deep in thought. "But I fear you're right, we won't be able to find Cave through her. If MI5 couldn't locate her in three years, why should we succeed? We specialize in finding serial killers who commit crimes on a regular basis and are, sooner or later, bound to make a mistake. We've got practically no experience in finding "normal" persons who have gone missing on purpose. Looks like we'll indeed have to go through the files you compiled on Cave, who apparently _is_ a serial killer committing crimes on a regular basis, hoping we find something there."

For a tiny moment the other team members were shocked at Reid capitulating without battle, but then they caught on.

"Yeah", Morgan agreed, "he's right. Will be a lot of sifting through documents."

"I see several all-nighters coming." Prentiss nodded in agreement.

"This will mean a lot of overtime, Aaron", Rossi addressed Hotch. "You better clear that with Erin."

Hotch briefly squinted his eyes, sending his team a signal to stop. Too much eager consent with Reid's statement could cause suspicion on Marwick's side.

Marwick, however was way too concerned with getting away from these bloody yanks to notice that something wasn't quite right. He couldn't wait to get out of that conference room and back to his roadside motel. The BAU had obviously somehow obtained very sensitive information directly from MI5's database. That was a totally unacceptable practice. Oh, they would hear from Chilcott! And people above Chilcott! Marwick was already formulating the report in his head. He had heard Hotchner was recently widowed, that could mean his superiors would try and cut him some slack. Well, no way, he would make sure this would cause major waves. At the motel he would sit down immediately and write a complaint, a right royal dressing down.

If he had only known what was waiting for him there.


	7. Chapter 7

**Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds and intend no copyright infringement.**

"If we knew what Marie-Élise had been doing in Nancy this would be a lot easier", Garcia sighed. She had set up camp completely in the conference room now, showing the others how she was working with the few details they had gotten from Marwick and the somewhat more abundant details she had retrieved from MI5's database.

"MI5 already tried that approach, but she was seen in a densely built-up industrial area, with more than 25 enterprises, garages and workshops in the immediate vicinity, not to mention the wider surroundings." Prentiss stared at the map of Nancy as if she was trying to get an answer by hypnotizing it. "She could have been everywhere", she said.

"Try all garages. Maybe she had her car repaired", Morgan suggested.

"MI5 had this checked thoroughly. I found a personal entry by Section Chief Chilcott on that matter."

"What about this workshop for electrical appliances? Or the home-improvement market? She didn't just go for a walk in that area - Nancy offers a million more beautiful places. She went there with a purpose." Rossi had just reentered the room after a short private conversation. The unsub's fourth victim had had a severely handicapped brother no one was taking care of now and Rossi was trying to arrange something by calling in a couple of favors. This was hardly more than a drop in the ocean, though. The other victims had dependants in need, too. He couldn't help all of them. They needed to put a stop to this and it seemed finding Marie-Élise was the only way. Unfortunately she seemed to be hell-bent on not being found.

_Not being found…_

A vague idea formed in his mind.

"Do we know of any back alley quack practicing in that area? If she's still hiding from MI5 she probably doesn't go to official doctors."

Reid spun around and looked at Rossi with an expression that meant he had just had a flash of inspiration.

"No quack the French authorities are aware of", Garcia sighed, slumping her shoulders.

Reid, on the other hand, suddenly seemed totally hyped up. "Garcia, show us the photo again. The photo of Marie-Élise in the garden"

"At least something I can do", she mumbled. This case was really getting to her, dead ends everywhere. She had taken a look at the laptop of the latest victim, Rachel, the 16 year old teenager. Apparently she had only just enrolled in a computer course at school. It had been heartbreaking, seeing the little programs she had tried to write as homework. Garcia hadn't been able to resist; she had taken Rachel's last homework, corrected it, jazzed it up a little and then sent it to the computer course teacher, manipulating the e-mail so that it looked Rachel had sent it prior to her death and the sending of the e-mail had just been delayed for an unusual length of time.

"Anyone an idea what breed the cat is?", Reid asked the others.

"The cat?" For a moment Prentiss was confused, but then her eyes widened in realization. "The Nancy veterinary hospital! They don't have CCTV! And it's only a five minute walk from there to the spot where Marie-Élise was seen. But do you really think she kept the cat on the photo through all these years?"

"It would make sense", Rossi agreed. "The cat was a kitten on the photo. It could still be alive. And it was the only member of the family that didn't die in the shootout. The last remnant of her old life. It's probably of great emotional value to her. "

Finally having something to work on, Garcia swung into full research mode. "Deducing breed from a picture alone, without additional information on weight, height, length of fur etc. is rather difficult, but maybe if I try a facial recognition program and modify it a little…" She was interrupted by another shrill signal from her computer. "Oh."

"What is it, Garcia?", Hotch asked.

"You asked me to try and find out who sent the information regarding the blue hands to the TV station. Looks like my little tracing program was successful this time." She patted the computer like a pet. "Good girl, well done." Then she turned her attention back to her boss. "But I need to check and unravel the data first before I can say anything definitely."

"Work on the cat first", Hotch decided. "Finding Marie-Élise has top priority." His cell phone signaled and he excused himself to take the call.

Garcia's hands flew over the key board. "For all I can say it might be a Burmese, a Turkish Angora or a Persian mix. Let me check this with the hospital records that day – YES! A Turkish Angora named Pompon was treated that day for paw injury. Oh no…"

"What is it?" Morgan regarded his babygirl with watchful eyes. She was going through quite sudden mood changes lately, euphoric one minute, sad and lacking confidence in herself the next. He decided to have a word with Kevin a.s.a.p.

"The owner of the cat paid cash", Garcia replied crestfallen. "And there are no other records of this cat in the hospital's data base. Apparently Marie-Élise only brought her in this one time."

"Check if the cat was chipped and the hospital wrote down the identification number", Rossi told her. Everyone looked at him in surprise. "Three ex-wives, numerous fluffy pets to compensate for husband's lack of attention", he shrugged. "I'm not much of a cat person. Found one dead mouse too many in my bed. And they seem to love digging their claws into silken, monogrammed pajamas."

Garcia let out a shriek of sheer joy. "The cat was chipped! We've got the number! And you won't believe it, according to the records of the Direction Générale des Douanes Pompon was transported out of France one week after Marie-Élise was seen in Nancy. To transport a French cat across state borders you have to fill out numerous forms and fulfill lots of requirements, such as a health report etc. And they all have the chip's number on it. According to international records Pompon was flown from Paris to Vancouver. Give me a couple of minutes and I'll get you more!"

"Good. Stay back, work on it and call us as soon as you have something." Hotch had reentered the room. The look on his face bode ill.

"Didn't you say finding Marie-Élise has top priority?", Morgan asked.

"I'm afraid we'll have to change that. Local police just called us to a crime scene."

"Another victim?", Prentiss asked, fearing whom the unsub might have chosen this time. A child? A pregnant woman?

"Yes and no. It's Agent Marwick."


	8. Chapter 8

**Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds and intend no copyright infringement.**

They hadn't liked Marwick, but ending like this was nothing they would have wished upon anyone. His bloody, beaten body was chained to a chair. Apparently he had been tortured. Two of his front teeth were missing, one completely extracted, one broken off close to its root.

"According to the MI5 files extracting teeth with pliers as a method of torture was another one of Cave's specialties", Reid informed the others.

"Except for this ominous e-mail maybe, but not for sure, sent to us by Marie-Élise Alphonse, all evidence we ever ran into during this case points in the direction of Cave. Can we be really sure Marie-Élise knows what she's talking about? And how do we know her motives aren't tainted either? Damn, I just hate cases with foreign intelligence services involved!" Morgan voiced what they all were thinking.

Hotch, who had been talking on the phone, cut the connection. "Section Chief Chilcott in person will come to oversee our further operations. MI6 also wants to send someone in, a man named Dewhurst, and suddenly CIA is showing interest, too. Our old friend Johnson just filed an official application to be included."

"You should consider asking Erin to join in, too", Rossi said. "They could keep each other busy throwing political BS around."

Before Hotch could formulate an answer, Garcia called Morgan. He put her on speaker. "I've just checked what my tracking program found out about the e-mail to the TV station that informed the journalist about the blue hands. Hold on to your seats, dears. The goddess of all knowledge traced the e-mail back and it was sent from a computer owned by – imagine dramatic drum roll here - Agent Liam Marwick."

Now, this was indeed interesting news. "Marwick gave the information to the TV station? But why would he…"

"Excuse me, agents?" Prentiss was interrupted by a crime scene investigator.

"You might want to take a look at this." The young investigator showed them a small carry-all and retrieved a blue plastic bottle from it.

"Liquefied indigo powder?", Rossi asked.

"Lab examination will have to verify that, but it looks like", the young man replied. "And that's not all. Weren't the Traveler's victims executed with a 45er?" He used a pencil to uphold a gun which had been stashed right next to the bottle.

While the others were completely concentrating on this new development, Reid had remained focused on the body, taking in every detail of its position, its multiple wounds and the way it was chained to the chair. "I'd like to compare this with photos of Cave's documented victims. The file is in the car. I'll be back in a minute", he told Hotch and headed out the door.

"So Marwick's our unsub? Or is this evidence planted?", Rossi asked the others.

"We can let Garcia check when Marwick entered the country and his credit card records; I'm sure she can reconstruct his movements within the last fourteen days", Morgan stated. "Lab examination might find fingerprints on the bottle or the weapon. Let's assume for a moment he not only contacted the TV station but also killed all these people. Why?"

"He wanted to draw our attention to Cave", Prentiss mused, but Rossi vehemently shook his head.

"Not _our_ attention to Cave. _Cave's_ attention to him."

Morgan immediately agreed: "Imagine you've got an assassin gone completely underground. What's the best way to flush him out? By copying his work and making it public! It all fits: The more and more attention-seeking choice of victims and dump sites, the informing of the TV station – even bringing us in makes sense. Marwick was obviously fiercely determined on lighting a fire under Cave's ass."

"Seems like he got a little too close to that specific fire", Prentiss remarked.

"High-profile assassins like Cave take great pride in their work. This…" Hotch turned to the body. "… could very well be his payback to Marwick's provocation."

"I bet Reid's photos will show tons of congruity between the state of Marwick's body and previous victims of Cave. In that line of business, reputation is everything. Cave would surely not want anyone to compromise his track record by killing randomly and in such an in-your-face way", Morgan agreed. "Where is Reid, by the way? The car is parked right behind the cabin."

At this very moment, his cell phone rang; Garcia again. "I've dug up more about Pompon's whereabouts", she said, sounding excited and happy, as Morgan noticed. "Apparently she was a regular patient of a vet in Huntingdon. That's a small town in Huntingdon County in the Haut-Saint-Laurent Regional County Municipality of Quebec. A "Colleen Sheehan" is listed as the owner, resident in Huntingdon since two years. I called the vet's office, the secretary describes Ms. Sheehan as a woman in her late twenties with dark curly hair."

"Might very well be Marie-Élise", Rossi said.

"I go and get Reid, he should hear this." Morgan walked out the door.

"And here comes the really interesting part: Colleen Sheehan left Pompon at a boarding kennel yesterday. Her car was registered crossing the Canadian border a couple of hours later."

"She left the country?" Hotch was highly alarmed and so were the others. If she was the one who had sent the e-mail to Strauss – and they were quite convinced she was – it indicated that Marie-Élise had, for whatever reason, great interest in Cave and the person who had been trying to flush him out. What if she had discovered earlier than they had that Marwick had been playing foul? At Heraklion's they had surely trained her how to torture.

BAM!

The door to the cabin was flung open so vigorously, it smashed against the wall. "Reid is not outside!", Morgan all but shouted at them.


	9. Chapter 9

**Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds and intend no copyright infringement.**

Everything was dark. Reid opened his eyes, but the darkness remained. Soft cloth lightly touched his nose. A hood. Then he heard a female voice, reading something aloud. He recognized the text immediately for he knew it by heart:

_"Spencer, I knew it would be you who came to the cabin to check on me. I'm sorry the explanation couldn't be better, Spencer. And I'm sorry it doesn't make more sense. But I've already told you... I just don't understand any of it anymore." _

"Oh. That's deep. Who wrote that?", she asked.

"That's private", Reid replied tersely. His head spun.

"Yeah, I know, since you kept this letter folded in your wallet it was probably not meant for everyone to see, but as you might deduce from the fact that I abducted you, sedated you, tied you up and hooded you, I'm not that great at respecting other people's personal space."

The hood was removed and Reid found himself in some sort of garage, a gray, dilapidated room with concrete floor, walls and ceiling. In the dim light of a bare light bulb he could make out a woman in her late twenties, tiny and slim, with long curly dark hair. She was bent over a table on which various tools and household items, among them a stapler and pliers, were spread out.

"Marie-Élise", he said.

"Call me Colleen", she replied, rummaging around with the tools.

Reading about her fate in the MI5 file, Reid had immediately felt sorry for her. Till she turned 13 she had had the life Reid had wished for himself – parents of stabile mental health, siblings, all sorts of measures taken to encourage and support the brilliant mind she was born with. And then, from one moment to the next, she had lost it all and was thrown into a totally alien world with her life at risk every breath she took. He wondered what was worse – losing blessings once had in a single violent moment or never having had them?

Well, for now this question was irrelevant as the tools on the table didn't bode well.

She yawned. "Sorry, didn't get much sleep last night."

"Are you going to torture me like you did Marwick?", Reid asked.

"I didn't torture Marwick. Was too late. And neither did Cave, by the way. But I'm going to torture you, yes."

"You do realize that information retrieved under torture is more often than not completely useless, don't you? People are likely to say everything when exposed to pain." He knew the others were already looking for him. The longer he kept her talking, the better the chances they would find him unharmed.

"Yes, but on the other hand 500 years of Inquisition can't be completely wrong." She smiled in a sad, thoughtful way, holding up an electric slicing knife, undecidedly switching it on, then off again. "But don't worry, I'm not much into the extraction of teeth. Too physically exhausting – I'm too small and light for that kind of hard work. I prefer car batteries and bare wire, but since I left my home in kind of a haste and had no time to pack properly, I'll have to improvise a little…" She took the stapler and turned towards Reid.

"What do you want to know?", he asked, trying to remain as calm as possible. No small feat. The sedative she had injected him was still taking a heavy toll on him.

"Who besides the BAU people is involved into this investigation?"

The question momentarily confused Reid. He had expected her to demand code words, identification numbers, that kind of thing. But this was harmless. "As far as I know MI5 Section Chief Chilcott, a man named Dewhurst from MI6 and Stanley Johnson, CIA."

Marie-Élise fell silent for a moment, staring off into the distance as if lost in thought.

"Not very helpful, but that's not your fault. You've just saved both of us a lot of time and energy." She put the stapler away again.

Reid couldn't believe it. For that simple question she had _abducted _him?

"You just showed me all these things to scare me, didn't you?", he blurted out, totally surprised that this seemed to be over so quickly. His head was still spinning.

"Anticipation is a huge part of the game." She yawned again, then picked up Gideon's letter one more time.

"Who wrote this? Sounds like somebody betrayed you and asks for your forgiveness." She tilted her head sideways and studied him carefully. "Somebody you trusted. How did it feel to be betrayed? Did you forgive him?"

Reid shook his head so violently, it made him sick. "This is none of your business."

"Oh, should we try the stapler after all?" She smiled again, but this time clearly sardonically.

Common sense and hostage training at FBI academy told Reid that it was not a good idea to antagonize the abductor when being the chained-to-a-chair abductee in a room full of torture devices. But Gideon was still a sore spot in his heart, nothing he wanted to talk about with anyone, and surely not an apparently unhinged ex-assassin, former undercover agent or not. "It's none of your business", Reid repeated, teeth clenched, preparing himself for bad things to come.

But Marie-Élise merely laughed. "You and I aren't that difficult, Dr. Reid. It's just that we chose different paths. _Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by…_"

_"…And that has made all the difference"_, Reid finished the poem by Robert Frost. "But isn't it more so that we were found by different people? You didn't really have a choice. You were young and traumatized, you…"

"I'm a strong believer in everybody's ability to make conscious decisions", she interrupted him. "I don't buy any of that "I had no choice" crap. It's just a question whether you want to live with the consequences or not. Like you, a moment ago. You had every reason to believe I was going to hurt you, but nevertheless you decided that remaining silent was worth it. When I was thirteen I chose revenge over moving on. And I have continued doing so, ever since. That's not something someone implanted in me, Reid. That's who I am."

"And what is going to happen now?", he asked.

"Now?", she repeated, taking a syringe from the table. "Now I'm going to bring you back to your people and hand myself in." She said it as if this was the most lucid thing in the world.

"Don't sedate me again", Reid told her. "I've got a history of drug problems and another dose might throw me back into months of therapy."

"Oh", she shrugged. "In this case…"

She put down the syringe and knocked him out with one straight punch to the head.


	10. Chapter 10

**Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds and intend no copyright infringement.**

"I really don't know why you're so angry with me", Marie-Élise told no one in particular. "I brought him back practically unharmed."

"_Practically? _You really didn't come here to make any friends, did you?" Prentiss' eyes were blazing with fury as she cautiously pressed an ice pack against Reid's swollen forehead.

Garcia had unnecessarily brought a blanket from somewhere and proceeded to wrap Reid into it.

"It's summer", her protested vehemently. "It's almost 90 degrees outside!"

"You might be suffering from shock", she insisted.

"Friends? Actually no, I didn't", Marie-Élise answered Prentiss, watching them buzzing around Reid with interest. "I came here to help you catch the person who killed Marwick in order to find Cave."

"And how are you planning to do that?", Rossi asked, studying her carefully. So, this was famous Marie-Élise Alphonse. She looked harmless, the way she sat there, opposite from him, stirring the cup of tea Garcia had begrudgingly brought her, but the fact that she had managed to abduct Reid from a crime scene, with dozens of police officers running around, indicated everything but.

"I can set up a meeting with Cave. He could throw light on why Marwick was so hell-bent on finding him and that might help to find the person who killed Marwick."

"You realize we can't let you go and meet him alone, Marie-Élise, do you?", Hotch asked, looking at her as watchful as everyone else. Her whole demeanor reminded him of a cat – an elegant, lithe creature, self-assured and in control. But more dangerous. It was as if they had a tiger sitting in the room with them.

"Call me Colleen", she insisted again. "Marie-Élise died a tragic death at the age of thirteen. Broken heart, I'd say, although that's hardly a valid medical diagnosis."

"And what about Fleur?", Rossi asked, arching his eye-brows.

"She died in an explosion, eight years ago. A violent death after a violent life. Kind of fitting." She took a sip from her tea. "I'd like Dr. Reid to go with me to the meeting. The rest of you – and I've heard there are more persons involved than this small group – can give us back-up and listen in via earpiece. But don't come too close, Cave isn't the social type of person."

"What is it with you and Reid?", Prentiss asked impatiently. "Why he?"

"He's the one I can most easily overpower", she replied shrugging. "Should things go wrong I can take him hostage and use him as my ticket out of here." She yawned again. "Sorry, didn't get much sleep lately."

"You're talking about us as if we were your enemies", Morgan told her. "We're on the same side."

"This "sides" thing is something I lost belief in some time ago." She got up and proceeded to leave the room. "I'd like to make my call to Cave in privacy."

"What MI5 did to you wasn't right", Rossi told her. "They severely abused you and then tried to kill you. Don't let them win by turning into what they thought they needed the world to protect from."

_"Every night and every morn, some to misery are born. Every morn and every night, some are born to sweet delight. Some are born to sweet delight, some are born to endless night__."_ She smiled an eerie smile at him. "It sounds beautiful, but I don't agree with Blake here. Nobody "turned" me into anything. I chose the path of revenge and walked it down ever since, despite the numerous exits I could have taken."

"What happened to the man who accidentally killed your family?", Rossi asked.

"He had an accident himself, a couple of years ago. One of the fatal kind." She shrugged her shoulders. "Job went south. Happens all the time in that business."

"Were you on a team with him when that job "went south"?"

"Actually I was." She smirked at him in mock astonishment. "How did you know?" Still smiling, she left the room.

"Cave's real name is Niall MacKenna", Rossi told Reid. "By calling herself Colleen Sheehan she chose an Irish name, in deep contrast to the two French names she carried before. Being French by birth, these names represented ties to her roots. The changing of the name indicates that she now identifies with MacKenna. He was most likely her mentor and, given what lengths she goes to protect him, seems to have taken a father role for her. Not surprising, considering what she went through. You must be careful, Reid. Her loyalties aren't with us. I despise what MI5 was planning, but they did have a point."

Reid couldn't help but think how easily something like that could have been said about him, hadn't he been found by the right people. The pain of missing Gideon, usually just a blunt ache in the back of his mind, suddenly became the searing stab again he had felt in the first weeks after his departure.

"I'll go with her", he said. "And I'll manage."


	11. Chapter 11

**Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds and intend no copyright infringement.**

"Give it back to him", Hotch told Colleen via earpiece.

"I don't do terribly well with orders", she replied. "And me not being allowed to have a gun while Reid who, no offense here, can't even _carry_ his duty weapon correctly, is simply ridiculous."

They were in a huge, derelict industrial facility. From Cave's point of view, the ideal meeting place. Although the rest of the team together with the bigwigs Dewhurst, Chilcott, Johnson and even Strauss were observing the whole operation from several vans parked in the vicinity there were numerous ways to enter and leave unseen, a thousand possibilities to hide. Of course they would try to apprehend him, there was no way they would let a multiple murderer walk away just like that, but given the location, chances were they wouldn't get a hold on him.

"You're planning something", Reid told her. "Rossi warned me that your name indicates you pose a threat, but "Colleen" is the Americanized version of Irish "cailin", meaning "girl". Morgan calls me "kid", Rossi sometimes "son". "Girl", that's how Cave called you, isn't it? You took on the name Cave gave you. So far this speaks for Rossi's theory. But your last name, "Sheehan", means "peaceful". You're very fond of Cave, but when you staged your death at the airfield you consciously moved away from his choices in life and decided to go your own, peaceful way." He gave the weapon in her hand an ostentatious look. "Don't turn around now by taking bloody revenge on somebody."

"How do you know I'm out for revenge?"

"You told me, several times. At our first meeting, for example. You said you chose revenge over moving on and have done so ever since. I don't know whom you want to take revenge on – Cave wouldn't make much sense - but you are out for revenge. Don't do it. For eight years you lived a peaceful life. You can continue this."

_"The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep."_ She laughed. "This reciting thing is an annoying habit, isn't it? But I love Robert Frost." She looked at her mobile which Reid hadn't noticed signaling. "A message from Cave. He's waiting upstairs, in the former director's office, right above the room with the pumps, next to the company's main conference room."

"Okay, you meet with Cave, ask him about the murders and leave again, understood?", Morgan told her and Reid via earpiece. "No "funny" extr…."

"Morgan? Hotch?", Reid asked, but the connection was broken off.

"It has begun", Colleen hissed, and, with surprising strength, pushed Reid backwards to the grime-covered floor. As soon as he landed on the ground she gave him a devastating kick to the stomach that made Reid cry out in pain. "Somebody activated an interfering transmitter to cut off our connection to the others. I also imagine they might have getting trouble to get their vans going or something. Manipulating the cars is what I would do." Out of nowhere she produced handcuffs and chained him to a pipe on the wall. "If you know what's good for you, you remain silent."

"What is this about?"

She shook her head.

"It's my life you're risking here. Don't you think I deserve to know for what I might die?" Reid flinched at the awkward angle his leg was positioned underneath him. Ever since he had taken a gun shot there, it bothered him when he made moves in certain directions.

"Do as I say and keep quiet, then nothing will happen to you." She took off upstairs.

Reid waited till the echo of her footsteps faded away. "Morgan? Hotch?", he tried again, but there was no reply. He could imagine Garcia hectically trying all sorts of things to restore the connection. Carefully he bent his long, thin fingers to retrieve the bobby pin he had been hiding in his sleeve. All these magic tricks he loved to practice weren't for nothing – the picking of handcuffs was a classic in every great illusionist's repertoire and of course he had incorporated it into his, too. It took some fidgeting but finally the cuffs came off. He loosened the gun attached to his ankle, silently thanking Rossi for his foresight, and took off after Colleen.


	12. Chapter 12

**Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds and intend no copyright infringement.**

Reid had a vague idea what was going on. It had been the way Colleen had given away Cave's exact location via earpiece, as if she wanted to make sure someone from the outside would find him. Only that there was no Cave. Reid knew he could trust his senses – Colleen's mobile hadn't signaled. If he wasn't totally mistaken she was for some reason totally convinced that someone from FBI, CIA, MI5 or MI6 was behind Marwick's death. For whatever reason she had also come to the conclusion that he, Spencer Reid, was not the unsub. Maybe that was why she had abducted him at the Crime Scene, to find out if he had killed Marwick, although he had no idea what had proved him innocent in her eyes.

What he definitely knew, though, was that she was fiercely determined to confront the unsub. She had used him to make sure word got to FBI, CIA and the Brits that she was meeting Cave and where. Apparently whoever it was had swallowed the bait, interrupted all means of communication, most likely somehow further hindered Hotch and the others to get here and entered the building himself to meet Cave. Colleen was waiting for him, gun at the ready.

Silent as a mouse he moved up the stairs. Everything she had done in her past was somehow justified by her role as an undercover agent, but this here would be murder in the first degree. He had to stop her.

The door to the director's office was a little of the latch. He could hear Colleen's voice loud and clear. "Let me guess, Chilcott", she said. "Marwick, a pencil pusher, was told to sift through the documents on Cave and somehow stumbled upon _Sweet Delight_, the "piece-of-cake" operation Heraklion did on behalf of CIA, MI5, MI6. The operation that disastrously went south, as I now know, thanks to you. He couldn't do much with the information, though… until Chinese military re-opened the area in question. Now all he needed were the coordinates of the gold ingots and he would never have to rely on the meager pension MI5 pays its low-rank employees. Of course you couldn't let him get away with this. But his idea to flush out Cave, the only surviving member of Heraklion's operation team, was not bad, was it? You thought all you needed to do was sit around and wait for Cave to appear." She paused, taking a deep breath.

"Do you realize most of the people on Heraklion's team were underage? Young people who had just finished training? This operation was meant to get their feet wet, to give them an idea of what it meant working out in the field. They were executed, all of them, by the thugs you hired to get your hands on the gold. Cave was responsible for them, he never got over losing them. Be grateful it's me who found you, not him. He would have made a long night out of this. You don't deserve it, but I'm going to go easy on you."

Read heard a soft click as she released the safety catch of his duty weapon.

With one swift motion that Morgan had practiced with him for hours, Reid kicked against the door, swung around, stepped into the room, dimly lit by a single light bulb dangling from the ceiling. He aimed at Colleen and a very pale looking Chilcott. "Drop the gun!", he told her. Unfortunately the momentary confusion his sudden entrance caused, combined with him focusing more on Colleen than on Chilcott, made it possible for Chilcott to rush forward, grab the gun from Reid's hand, twist his arm around and put it against his head.

"Drop your gun or he dies", Chilcott told Colleen.

"You don't really think his life means anything to me, do you?", she replied, no sign of hesitance in her voice or the way she held her gun. "You were one of the people who recruited me. You followed my so-called career and, if I'm not totally mistaken, you came up with the idea of eliminating me. You wouldn't have suggested that if there hadn't been reason to believe that I had indeed become a ruthless killer, would you?" She paused for a moment.

"I'm sorry, Reid."


	13. Chapter 13

**Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds and intend no copyright infringement.**

"I'm sorry, Reid, but I told you to stay where you were and remain silent." The hand she was holding the gun with was still completely steady. "I should have known you wouldn't stay behind, though. I wouldn't have, either. I'm deeply sorry." She made a tiny step forward, more like a shifting of weight than significant movement. Suddenly everything went pitch black. What happened next, Reid could only guess, not see.

… … …

"I want to know what's going on. Immediately", Hotch told Johnson who was with them in the van. They couldn't get out and they couldn't drive off. Apparently someone had manipulated the car's electronic systems. The doors were tightly shut and the engine made no sound at all, no matter how often Morgan turned the ignition key or how hard he stepped on the accelerator.

"My guess is as good as yours", Johnson replied, shrugging his shoulders.

With an amount of anger and aggression no one would have expected Hotch to be capable of, he pushed the other agent against the van's wall, so hard that the whole vehicle shook. "That's one of _my_ people out there, alone with an ex-assassin and a murderer! I want answers, now!"

Rossi and Derek both stared at their boss open-mouthed. This was totally uncharacteristic, usually it was their role to lose composure at some point. But usually it was not Reid's life that was at stake.

"What makes you think I know any more about this than you do?", Johnson asked, rubbing his shoulder.

"Instinct and experience", Hotch hissed.

… … …

Judging from the heavy blow he received to his mid-section and sent him crashing to the floor, pushing Chilcott with him to the ground, Reid concluded that Colleen had tackled both of them the second the lights went out. He suspected that she had installed a light switch and hid it somewhere among the debris on the ground so she could unobtrusively turn off the lights with her foot. He should have thought of that before – why should there be a working light bulb in a building that was vacated 10 years ago? That would at least explain why Colleen had been yawning all the time yesterday – she had probably worked the night before through to get electricity into the building.

Reid quickly rolled out of the way to give Colleen more room to fight. She was the close combat expert. Knowing one's limitations was part of a high level of intelligence. Besides that he was hoping to find Rossi's weapon which he had clearly heard clatter to the ground, somewhere among the debris.

A shot rang through the dark.

… … …

Johnson sighed. "This will cost you, Hotchner", he told his colleague.

"Not as much as the planting of an informant in Strauss' office will cost _you_", Hotch replied unblinking. "Never underestimate my people, especially not my technical analyst."

Johnson raised his hands in a gesture of defeat. "Eleven years ago", he began, "MI5, MI6 and CIA used Heraklion's services to pull off an operation codenamed "Sweet Delight". Its basic aim was to put a Chinese drug baron who had been swamping European and US-American markets with dirty drugs out of business for good. Of course that meant breaking every international agreement ever formulated between Europe, the USA and China, so Heraklion was brought in. Everything went fine, but sometime during the operation, Heraklion's people stumbled upon the drug baron's petty cash. 15 million USD in gold ingots. Now, that's tempting. Apparently too tempting for one of us. Somebody from either MI5 or MI6 got greedy and hired a local gang of thugs to take the ingots from them. Except Cave all of Heraklion's people died in the shootout. The ingots disappeared somewhere in the Taklamakan Desert. Chinese military declared the area a no-go zone shortly after, end of story. Till three weeks ago…"

… … …

"Turn on the lights again, Reid, will you?"

Reid groped around in the dark. For normal people finding a tiny light switch on the floor of a pitch black room would have been challenging to say the least, but Reid had memorized the approximate distance between Colleen's original position, the door and the remains of the director's desk. With this information it was simple geometry to estimate where the light switch was hidden. Reid felt Rossi's weapon press against his body. He was still not sure what to do with it. Colleen was definitely faster than his reaction time, the gun wouldn't deter her at all. He needed something else. There was a vague idea in the back of his mind but he wasn't sure if he should try it.

As he activated the switch, the light revealed Colleen, kneeling on Chilcott's back, pointing the gun at his head. Her shoulder was bleeding profoundly.

"Don't do it!", Reid told her, hoping to sound firm and commanding.

"I'm not doing well with orders, Reid", she reminded him.

Reid decided to give his alternative plan a go.

"It's what you promised Cave, didn't you? _"But I've got promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep."_ You weren't just reciting something. You _promised_ Cave to avenge the members of the Heraklion team that were killed in China, didn't you?"

"I owe him, Reid", Colleen replied.

"You asked about Gideon, the man who wrote the letter. You asked how I felt about having been betrayed like that. Gideon never betrayed me. He left me alone and that hurt, but he is my friend. I know he would have never hurt me if he had seen any other way, and so I came to terms with it. That's what true friends do. They put the other's well-being above their own."

Colleen didn't say anything. She just kept on pointing the gun at Chilcott.

"Cave didn't understand, did he? That day at the airfield, before you staged your death - he found out that you were an undercover agent, that you were behind the raid and he tried to kill you."

Reid took a deep breath. The next sentence was really risky. He had no idea if he was right or how she would react.

"You shot him in self-defense. That were his remains in that airplane, right?"

She looked as if he had stabbed her with a knife. "He was the closest thing to family I had in all those years. I disappointed him... And I killed him…", she whispered. "This is the only thing left I can do for him, Reid."

"He doesn't deserve it."

At this very moment Chilcott bucked madly against Colleen on his back. He rolled over, wrested the gun from her hand, aimed, and…

Reid pulled the trigger of Rossi's gun.

Hit deadly by a shot to the back of his head, Chilcott's body slumped down and fell backwards.

"You've saved my life", Colleen told Reid, totally shocked.

"You deserved it", Reid replied, shaking from the impact of the shot.


	14. Chapter 14

**Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds and intend no copyright infringement.**

"So right after you killed Chilcott she kicked the gun out of your hand and ran off?", Morgan asked. Almost a week had passed since the events in Chicago and he still asked from time to time. The others had given up meanwhile, but Morgan was, as always, more persistent. "And there was nothing you could have done?"

"You know how I am with guns", Reid replied, as he had done numerous times before. He already knew what was coming next – Morgan would tell him that letting Marie-Élise get away hadn't been a good idea, she needed treatment, supervision…. And besides that she was probably the only one who knew where in the vast Taklamakan Desert the money was hidden. Reid always had to stifle a grin when his friend came to that part. He was sure the gold ingots had left the desert a long time ago. How did they think Marie-Élise financed her lifestyle? Surely not with a pension from MI5….

Morgan opened his mouth to start about Marie-Élise needing professional guidance. Reid started reciting verses from Homer's Odyssey in his head to blank out Morgan's voice. Then thankfully an opportunity to get around his friend's litany suddenly presented itself.

"Didn't you want a personal word with Kevin?", Reid asked innocently and nodded in the direction of the technical analyst who had suspiciously avoided Morgan ever since his return from Chicago.

"Yo! Kevin, buddy!", Morgan called out and Kevin significantly accelerated his steps. No match for Morgan, of course. He caught up with him in no time.

"Kevin, my friend", Morgan said, putting an arm around the other man's shoulder in a seemingly friendly gesture. "Remember what I said about you breaking Penelope's heart and I breaking your neck?"

Kevin let out something that sounded like a yelp.

Reid, meanwhile, played with a card in his pocket he had been carrying around for two days now.

_Remember when I brought you back to your colleagues and said I would call Cave in private? I did make a telephone call that day. In my old life I met someone who could track down everyone. Through one of his contact persons I assigned him to find your friend Jason Gideon. This is what he came up with: _

Reid knew the address by heart by now.

Shortly before reaching Hotch's office door, he was stopped by Rossi. "Where are you going?"

"Just dropping something on Hotch's desk."

"A request for time off?", Rossi said, arching his eye brows.

"I feel like I want to go on vacation, yes."

"A specific destination?"

"Belgium. Hoge Kempen National Park."

Rossi smiled. "Famous for rare bird species, as far as I know."

Reid shrugged his shoulders in a casual manner, but the light in his eyes gave him away.

Rossi's smile widened. "What are you going to tell Gideon?", he asked.

"I'm grateful it was him who found me."

**the end**


End file.
